Closing the gap between school and work

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Dressed in hospital scrubs, Manida My heard "code blue" and saw her patient's heartbeat on the monitor. All she could think was, "What should I do?" Her first patient, "Johnny," was critically injured in a traffic accident caused by texting and driving.

"At first, I was really nervous. My heart was racing," said the 17-year-old, a senior at Lakewood High School in Long Beach, Calif. "I realized I had somebody helping me and I was more confident … Even though it was kind of scary, it was a good kind of thrill."

My was one of 21 Long Beach students assigned a role — such as doctor, nurse, phlebotomist— and given a mentor to treat 'Johnny', a simulated patient at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. The class is an example of how schools are combining rigorous college preparation with hands-on learning, a concept that is growing in popularity around the U.S.

Proponents say such programs are reversing drop out rates for high-risk students. But it also allows top students to get hands-on experience before spending money on the wrong college path. And some students get a head start by graduating from high school with an associate's degree.

"The reason it's caught on as the 'it' thing is because there's a need," said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

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Finding new ways to engage students is critical in an economy that continues to be a challenge for some job seekers.

High School student Adam Ariamendi performs chest compressions during a "code blue emergency" scenario as students take part in a hospital simulation course at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in Long Beach, CA.(Photo: Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY)

Nearly all of the 2.6 million new, livable wage jobs expected to be added by 2017 will require some form of post secondary education, but not necessarily a bachelor's degree according to a USA TODAY analysis of jobs data in the 125 largest metros. About 1.8 million of those jobs are STEM or high-paying blue collar positions, the data from Economic Modeling Specialists International and CareerBuilder show.

Meeting these challenges of the new economy is critical, and the typical college prep system isn't working, proponents say.

"We have huge numbers of young people who are dropping out of school, particularly in our larger metros, and there's significant numbers of young people who... graduate not very well-prepared for ongoing success in further education and a career," said Gary Hoachlander, executive director of ConnectEd, which promotes Linked Learning, the career pathway model Long Beach uses.

Nationally, the high school graduation rate is at an all-time high of about 80 percent, but education experts point to rates as low as 70 percent in Oregon and New Mexico, and for economically disadvantaged non-Asian minorities as evidence that the traditional high school format is not working.

For those who make it to college, few finish on time. Less than 35 percent of students at community colleges finish their certificates or associate's degrees within 150 percent of the expected time, whether it's a two-year degree or a three-month certification. At four-year schools, less than 40 percent of all students graduate within four years. Just 11 percent of blacks finish on time at public schools.

President Obama has proposed free community college, but critics say that won't solve the drop-out problem. Low-income students already have access to grants, but living expenses force many students to work full time.

Students who are exposed to real-world work experiences in high school are more likely to finish high school, go on to post-secondary training and get higher-paying jobs, according to a report by Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based non-profit.

An annual Gallup survey that measures student engagement shows 8 in 10 fifth graders report being engaged, but that falls to 4 in 10 once they reach high school.

That's a sign that the majority of high schools are failing, says Tony Wagner, education expert in residence at Harvard University.

"We're losing a generation of kids who are bored out of their mind," Wagner says, noting that the push for standardized testing has resulted in more rote learning and less opportunity for students to learn how to solve problems and think critically. "Kids today want to be active, engaged and know why they should learn that."

Technology has changed what students need from school, adds John Barge, Georgia's superintendent of education.

"Students don't need us (teachers) for information anymore. They have the Internet for that," Barge said. "What they do need us for is the relevance piece … So we kind of have to reinvent ourselves."

Career readiness in high school also reduces the chances students will jump from major to major in college, a problem that makes it difficult to graduate on time and leads to high debt, Barge said.

"College is the most expensive career-development program we have," he added. "We can do a much better job getting students prepared for college so they're not wasting time and money and spending six, seven years to get a four-year degree."

“We're losing a generation of kids who are bored out of their mind.”

Tony Wagner, educator

Some worry, though, that adding career prep in high school might be too focused on what employers want, or that it "tracks" students, limiting their options.

"We're not just interested in providing windfalls to industry … we have to have clear evidence that there are benefits to the students," said Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University and former U.S. Department of Labor chief economist.

Proponents say students are not being pigeon-holed, but rather reaping significant benefits.

"We're not training kids to have a specific job," said Donna Deeds, regional executive director of Northland CAPS, a program that provides career pathway learning in Missouri. "We're just exposing these kids to industries and the problems those industries are trying to solve."

Policymakers are taking notice. In 2014, career pathway programs received $107 million in federal grants, and Congress is considering a bill that would expand opportunities for funding career and tech programs.

"I think it's so important that every young person in high school be prepared for the world of work and college. It's always got to be about both," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with USA TODAY. "If you drop out (of high school) today, you're basically condemned to poverty and social failure."

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Employers complain they can't find qualified workers, whether it's a lack of technical skills or just not enough people interested in the job.

Entry-level workers lack critical thinking skills, writing and presentation skills, the ability to work as a team and -- sometimes - the ability to show up on time, said Stan Litow, president of the IBM International Foundation. "Everybody's wrestling with this same problem and they're looking for a solution."

IBM's solution: a network of lottery-based public schools called Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH)

The "grades 9 to 14" STEM schools give students access to mentors at IBM, work experiences and the opportunity to receive both a high school diploma and an associate's degree at no cost to the student. Those who complete the program are guaranteed an interview at IBM after graduation.

"What schools needed was a game-changing model," said Litow, credited as the architect of P-TECH, the first of which opened in Brooklyn in 2011.

That partnership between the city of New York, IBM and the City of University of New York has since added 26 schools, including in upstate New York, Chicago and Norwalk, Conn. By 2016, they expect to have 100 P-TECH schools nationwide.

CLOSE

Students at the California Math and Science School get real life experience with their engineering class projects.
Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

The college component sets P-TECH apart, although it's hard to judge its success until after the first full class graduates in 2017 according to Jobs for the Future, which has helped build programs in Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio, California and Tennessee.

Early results are promising. At the Brooklyn P-TECH, where the majority of the students are low-income black or Hispanic boys who were struggling in school, about 70 percent of the fourth-year students have already met the state's college-ready standards. Only the city's special-admissions high schools have performed as well or better. Citywide, just 39 percent of all students meet this threshold in time for graduation.

This early access to college helps students make the transition from high school to college and reduces the time and cost —things that are particularly helpful for first-generation college and low-income students.

Shannon Watkins, a 17-year-old junior at P-TECH's Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy in Chicago, is on track to earn an associate's degree just one semester after getting her high school diploma. Then she expects to be able to transfer those credits to a four-year college to complete the last two years needed to become a computer science teacher.

Her brother, who attends Iowa State, says she's lucky because she's saving so much money and time.

“If you're not challenged, then you're not pushing yourself to your full potential”

Shannon Watkins, 17

"If you're not challenged, then you're not pushing yourself to your full potential," Watkins says.

Other models are also taking hold.

Jeremy Hitchcock, the head of Manchester N.H.-based technology company Dyn, helped spur the school district to start STEAM Ahead New Hampshire, a school focusing on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM).

"Manchester has been in a sort of funk …young people are leaving and not coming here," said Bob Baines, former West High School principal and now the president of the non-profit. "It's a call we're hearing across the state: What can we do to change this dynamic?"

Setting up these programs takes money beyond the per-pupil state school funding, but many schools have relied on grants -- ranging from $500,000 to several million -- for start up costs, from non-profit organizations, and state and federal agencies.

Another model, Linked Learning, teaches all classes -- even English and math -- through a career theme such as health sciences. It's used in about 40 California school districts and will soon be added to Detroit, Houston and Rochester, N.Y.

In Nashville, the career academy model has been credited with reversing drop out rates.

"Our schools were failing," said Chaney Mosley, director of the district's career and technical education. "On the other side, our chamber of commerce was trying to solve problems as well. It's difficult to attract new businesses to the area when you have failing schools."

In 2005, about 58 percent of students in the Metro Nashville School District's comprehensive high schools graduated on time and about 88 percent attended on any given day.

The district split its high schools into career academies, enabling students to choose pathways such as culinary arts, automotive technology, engineering, business and finance, health care, fashion, web design, aviation maintenance, criminal justice, even the music business, among others.

More than 300 local employers signed on to provide work-based learning options and guidance to administrators and teachers about the skills needed.

Two schools have working credit unions, two others have coffee shops. There is a recording studio and record label. The hospitality academies have kitchens and dining rooms; one has a hotel room. There are crime scene laboratories, simulated healthcare settings and a branch of the youth court system overseen by a professional judge.

"It gives students a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose to come to school," Mosley said.

The graduation rate is now about 78 percent overall. Some schools made even more dramatic turnarounds, including one that increased its graduation rate from 41 percent to 82 percent. Attendance is averaging 92 percent.

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Making core subjects like math and English relevant is key, so students aren't constantly asking "Why do I need to learn this?"

At Ernst S. McBride High School in Long Beach, Calif., criminal justice pathway ninth-graders last fall conducted a mock trial based on the "The Odyssey" for their English class. Students each took up roles as prosecutor, defense attorney, judge, witnesses and jury members to put Odysseus on trial for murdering the suitors who took over his home while he was gone. (They found him guilty)

"(Students) had to look at the story through a different context," said Beverly Moutet, lead teacher in McBride's criminal justice pathway. "It made them analyze the characters more deeply and helped them understand the story better."

That connection between school and a future career helped senior Blanca Lopez Tucux confirm she wants to work in pediatrics -- and endure a 90 minute one way commute to attend Bernstein High School's STEM Academy in Los Angeles. Through the school, she got to do volunteer work and be paired with a mentor at Los Angeles Medical Center.

"It made me really figure out I really want to work with children," Lopez Tucux said.

Parents and educators of the college-bound need to realize career and technical education "is not an evil thing," says Steve Rockenbach, principal at McBride High School in Long Beach.

"The reality is that, more and more, the industry experts and universities want the kids to come in having an understanding of how academics fits into the world of work and how they work together," he said.

Engineering instructor Joseph Carpenter aims to teach his students some of the things they will need as engineers, but can't learn from a book: how to work as a team, solve problems and overcome failure.

Isaiah Stanley (left) and Dietrich Henson work on assembling a drone for a class project at California Academy of Mathematics and Science.(Photo: Robert Hanashiro, USAT)

"I want to inspire these students to be people that I would hire," said Carpenter, who left a 35-year career in engineering to teach at the California Academy of Mathematics and Science (CAMS) in Long Beach.

He splits his high school senior engineering class into two "companies" that compete for a fictional federal government contract to build a robot for a specified purpose. They interview for jobs within each company, raise money, acquire components, make presentations to industry professionals, and then design and build the robot — with little help from Carpenter.

This year, his students are building a robot that can bore into the side of a simulated volcano, collect air, temperature and material samples, then fly the data out via a drone.

"If it works, great. If it doesn't, it's a learning experience," said Carpenter. "It's a well-known story that Edison took something like 1,600 tries to find out what material would be good filament for a light bulb. Someone asked him about that and he said, I just learned a thousand different ways not to invent a light bulb. And that's the kind of attitude I want (my students) to have."

Sandra Le, 17, just has to look at the wall full of college banners in Carpenter's classroom to understand the value she's getting from his class.

The banners show where each former student of the class ended up, and the wall is dominated by the most prestigious engineering schools in the country — Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Olin College of Engineering, to name a few.

Former students say they arrive at college with far more experience and understanding of engineering than their college peers, Carpenter said.

Le, who wants to become a biomedical engineer and specialize in cardiology, said the real-world experience teaches her so much more than if Carpenter had them build robots from kits.

"This class hasn't just taught me what to learn, or how to build something, it's taught me how to learn," Le said.

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Closing the gap between school and work

Dressed in hospital scrubs, Manida My heard "code blue" and saw her first patient's heartbeat displayed on the monitor next to the bed. All she could think was, "What should I do?" Her patient, "Johnny," had